If you’ve talked to me for any length of time you probably know that my favorite show of all time is Seinfeld. Not only do I own all nine seasons in the glorious digital nirvana that is DVD, I’ve probably seen each episode at least three times, and I’ve seen some of my favorites more than twenty. I can (and do) make Seinfeld references when appropriate (heck, who am I kidding, some of them are inappropriate too).

Because I’m hurting for a blogging topic (not that there’s anything wrong with that), and because we can all use a little humor, here’s my top 10 favorite Seinfeld episodes. (After the break, since there are a bunch of YouTube movies.)

Like every winter, I’m anxious for this one to end. Not particularly because it’s been cold here in Columbia, SC, but because the end of winter means the beginning of baseball season. Pitchers and catchers for many teams reported to Spring Training today, and while the Indians aren’t required to report until next week, many of them are in Arizona already preparing for the upcoming season.

Which is why, when I read the title of this article, I smiled a bit and started to read.

One of the less visible changes, however, was the installation of Google Analytics about two years ago, on February 25, 2008, to be exact. Since then, I’ve been able to gauge where my visitors are reading from, what they like and where they came from on the Web. A couple of interesting things jumped out at me as I analyzed the data, and while I try not to do too many self-serving posts, I couldn’t resist this one. Hopefully you’ll see why later.

Overall

First, here’s the visitor graph for that entire two years:

Visitors graph since February 25, 2008

Visitors graph since February 25, 2008

Most of the peaks (as you may imagine) came on days when I posted (or the day after, depending on how late the post was). The highest peak came when one of my posts was Reddited on the gaming subreddit.

Operating System

Operating system breakdown since February 25, 2008

Operating system breakdown since February 25, 2008

This graph shows a breakdown of the operating systems visitors are using to view the site. In general I think the viewing audience of this site is skewed away from Windows more than the norm, but Windows still holds the vast majority with Mac OS X and Linux not far behind. I found it interesting that 2.3% of my visitors were using the iPhone OS via either an iPod Touch or an iPhone, showing that the mobile platforms are certainly gaining traction. I’m not sure what a “Danger Hiptop” is, but wherever you are, thanks for visiting! (Once, apparently. Was it something I said?)

Browser

Browser breakdown since February 25, 2008

Browser breakdown since February 25, 2008

Now it really starts to get interesting. Apparently Firefox is my readers’ most popular choice. This surprises me because Firefox has never been my favorite browser, and I really only used it as my primary browser for a few months at work (where, as you might imagine, I don’t frequent my own blog). However, I also know that a little less than halfway through this reporting period I switched default browsers on all of my Windows machines to Google Chrome from IE 7. I think this sort of weakened those two browser’s numbers a bit (kind of like Ralph Nader and the democrats). Firefox, IE and Chrome make up the top three with Safari (including iPhone Safari) coming in fourth. Lesser known browsers such as Camino and Konqueror round out the bottom.

International location

International visitors since February 25, 2008

International visitors since February 25, 2008

Obviously most of my visitors come from the United States, but I’ve certainly made a dent in other countries as well, including all six populated continents. I have yet to crack the Great Firewall of China (I wrote a paper (PDF) trashing that firewall back in 2008, I’m not surprised no one from there has found me), but most of Europe and North America have visited, along with parts of South America and Asia. In terms of rankings (not pictured), the U.S. ranks first, followed by Canada, India, the United Kingdom and Australia.

US location

US visitors since February 25, 2008

US visitors since February 25, 2008

Now this is where things get really interesting for me. As you can see, I’ve had visitors from every U.S. state except North Dakota. I want this blog to have been read in all 50 states, so if you have friends in North Dakota, tell them to read this once and it’s a personal favor to me. Seriously. Just once. In terms of state ranking, Ohio is first, followed by New York (on the right of that picture), South Carolina, Pennsylvania (sorry Amanda, I don’t have a picture of you handy), and Indiana (on the left).

In all seriousness though, it’s been really fun writing, ranting and raving the past few years. No matter where you’re reading from, no matter what browser you choose or what OS you use, thank you. I write most of this stuff for me, but it’s very gratifying that others other than myself seem to like it. Thanks again for reading, and as always, I look forward to my next post.